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Page Number

111

Abstract

Recently, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") ruled that grant-in-aid student athletes of National Collegiate Athletic Association ("NCAA" or the "NCAA") universities are permitted to unionize because they are employees of their respective NCAA universities - revolutionizing a troubling but well-settled area of sports and employment law. The issues created from this ruling spread far further than the obvious, begging many questions, in particular: how will a student-athlete be compensated, how will compensation be calculated, how much does the student-athlete deserve, and how will this affect private versus public universities?

Congress is meanwhile seeking to ensure that the NCAA and its member universities can no longer take advantage of athletes who often have no other alternative than to attend a university. Of course, this task will largely be an exercise in public policy. Congress should mainly require universities to compensate student athletes for the "full cost of attendance" in their scholarships and should share memorabilia royalties with the corresponding player, thus giving each student an additional financial incentive to maximize his potential. In the end, Congress must balance the continued importance of revenue-generating college athletic programs with the well settled principles of employment law and must realize that even though student-athletes derive a benefit from the universities, at current, universities are taking advantage of student-athletes for their own economic advantage. This article calls for Congress to clarify this pressing issue and state that student athletes should derive proper financial benefit from the fruits of their labor.

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